


caffeine is needed to function

by orphan_account



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Coffee Addict Tony Stark, Domestic Avengers, Gen, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 13:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11418558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tony Stark doesn't need sleep. He functions on coffee, sheer willpower and spite.((aka, 5 Times Tony Stark Needed Coffee, and One Time He Just Needed Sleep))





	caffeine is needed to function

1.

When the Avengers first moved into Avenger’s Tower, they had been warned about Tony’s coffee… “addiction”.

None of them had taken it seriously. They’d laughed it off, waved their hands. _It’s an exaggeration_ , they thought. _We already know Stark doesn’t sleep at all_ , they said.

It was a month in that they first came face-to-face with the true horror that was Tony’s need for coffee.

They hadn’t seen him in a few days. This was normal, he often spent days in… some place or another – if the Avengers would have to guess they’d probably say his workshop – without coming out.

Usually when he did though, it was after having finished whatever he went in there to work on in the first place. This usually meant that he’d have let himself sleep, because he didn’t have anything else to work on and probably because JARVIS had threatened to lock him out of the workshop if he didn’t _get some goddamned sleep_ , but this time…

A few things had gone wrong. He hadn’t finished his project (something about a new model of StarkPhone?) and he had only come out because the coffee machine in his workshop had _“run out of goddamned fucking coffee”_ – in his own words, muttered under his breath as he stormed into the communal kitchen.

Clint had been unlucky enough to be standing at the coffee machine when it happened. JARVIS had tried to warn him though, so it _was_ sort of his fault.

“Mr Barton, I must warn you, sir is on his way, and he hasn’t had his coffee today. He hasn’t slept in 54 hours.”

Everyone had looked up sharply at this. Sure, they knew that he would lock himself in for days at a time, but that he didn’t sleep for them?

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I’ll talk to him.”

“That will not make any difference, Dr Banner. Both Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes have tried.”

“Colonel Rhodes?” Steve asked in confusion. In the time that he’d been here he hadn’t encountered a Colonel Rhodes.

“Sir’s best friend since – “

They were cut off by Tony slamming open the door. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was everywhere, he was wearing just a tank top and shorts and he had oil all over himself.

He stopped for a second as he saw them. “Oh right, you guys are here.” Then he walked past all of them to the coffee machine. He almost pushed Clint out of the way, and instead of just making himself a cup of coffee as everyone had expected, he unplugged the coffee machine and started carrying it back with him.

The Avengers stared at the door he’d just gone out of in amazement, before JARVIS spoke again. Clint would swear later that the AI had _sighed_ as he said it.

“Sir has run out of coffee in his workshop. It seems his solution was to steal the coffee from in here.”

They continued to gape after him.

“So… maybe addiction _was_ the right word.” Clint said under his breath.

Bruce chuckled. “What I don’t get is that he has at least 5 coffee machines in his workshop. How could he have _possibly_ run out?”

This caused them to turn back to him in horror. “Holy shit. Maybe… we should look out for that.”

 

 

2.

Steve looked at the scene in front of him and shook his head.

“Where is Iron Man?” he all but growled, and punched one of the giant lizards that had appeared in front of him.

Natasha said something in what sounded to be Russian. “We left the Tower at the same time. Something must have caused him to be late on the way.”

Clint laughed from a few buildings over and spoke. “Who wants to bet he stopped either for coffee, or to save a coffee shop?”

Steve just rolled his eyes. “He better not have.”

As if on cue, he heard the Iron Man suit flying behind him, and the noise that came after as he shot one (or three; Steve decided that it sounded like three, so he must have used some gadget on the suit) of the lizards around him.

Steve decided to put down the matter of him being late until after the fight, where being distracted wouldn’t be able to cause any damages or injuries.

“Iron Man; we have to talk after this,” he settled with in the end. Tony just made a noise to show that he’d heard him, and Steve shrugged. That was probably as good as he was going to get.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Hulk and Thor both smashing more lizards; Hulk with his fists, and Thor with his hammer. He turned to hit another, and they had to keep doing that until there were no more (Tony had been the one to get the last few. He pressed a button, rockets came out of the suit, and they were gone.)

They all regrouped; the Hulk turned back to Bruce, and then they started to walk back to the Tower. Steve got a bad feeling in his chest when he saw the coffee shop that was nearest to the Tower, on the corner of the road.

It was totally unharmed. The rest of the buildings around it had all had something smashed into them, they had some sort of damage – but no, not this tiny, unassuming coffee shop.

He started to put some more thought into Clint’s words from before.

They got to the Tower, and Steve turned to Tony.

“What made you take so long to get there? Natasha told us that you guys left at the same time.”

Tony smiled at him, and Steve sighed. It was wide and absolutely _fake_ , so he was putting it on to add charm (the Avengers had learnt to distinguish. The media smile meant he was either hurt/sad, or wanted to make himself more charming so that people would believe him. With the context, Steve had to argue for the latter this time.) and he started to talk.

“I got held up on the way there. Had some _incredibly_ important business.”

Then JARVIS spoke up. “Sir stopped for coffee, and then spent ten minutes protecting the shop that he was in from stray lizards.”

Clint laughed and turned to Natasha. “See, what did I tell you?” Bruce just rolled his eyes, and Thor laughed.

“What? Coffee’s _important_. They have really good coffee.”

Steve sighed and just turned away. He had long since realised that Tony’s love of coffee wasn’t something he could fix.

Maybe, though, he could make sure that it didn’t affect his working again.

(Spoilers: He couldn’t.)

 

 

3.

From the start, Bruce had known that Tony… _had a thing_ for coffee.

He just hadn’t realised _how much_.

(How much he depended on it? How much he drank a day? How much he kept on him at all times? Yes to all.)

It started when they first worked together in Bruce’s lab. Tony had needed his help for some of the more “squishy parts” of the project he was working on, and so he’d burst into the lab at 1AM, looking totally _awake_ and going a mile a minute. Bruce had just been ready to start heading up to his room and get some sleep, and he told Tony this.

“Who needs sleep? Sleep is for the weak. What time is it, anyway?”

“It’s 1AM.”

At this, Tony frowned. Then, more cautiously, “And what day?”

Bruce looked at him in worry, and Tony rolled his eyes. “Saturday.” This made Tony smile again.

“Ok. Now, back to what I came in here for. _Please_ , Brucie Bear?”

“Tony, sleep may be optional for you, but for the rest of us, it’s kind of… _needed_ to function properly,” he says and smiles drily.

Tony sighed and waved him away. “Fine,” he scowled. “But I’m coming back in the morning and you’re helping me then.”

~

Sure enough, when Bruce woke up, Tony came to him almost straight away. Bruce sent him a worried look.

“After I went to sleep… did _you_ end up getting any?”

Tony nodded. “Totally.”

Then JARVIS spoke up. “Sir has not slept in over three days, Dr Banner. He ignores my attempts to get him to.”

Bruce glared at him and sighed. “Tony, that’s not healthy.” He started to walk over to his desk, and Tony practically bounced after him.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. I don’t need sleep. I need coffee.”

Then he looked around the room, likely noting the _lack_ of coffee machines. Bruce was proven right when a minute later, he voiced whatever he actually had been thinking.

“There are no coffee machines in here. There is _no_ coffee in here. Brucie, scientist-to-scientist, how do you _survive_?” Bruce chuckled and rolled his eyes.

“Well, for starters I _sleep_. When I’m working on a project that needs me to stay awake, I go upstairs and get coffee then come back.”

Tony just gaped at him. “I could _never_ do that.”

“Yeah, Tony, we’ve all gathered that.” Tony just pouted – which was actually too adorable, and Bruce never thought that he would have said that.

~

They’d been working for 15 hours straight, because Tony was true to his words – he and Bruce had been working on Tony’s project the whole time. After the 7th hour, Bruce had started to eye Tony, ready for him to crash at any time. Instead, he just kept drinking more and more coffee.

Bruce, quite honestly, wasn’t sure why he was surprised, at this point.

He had long since given up on trying to get Tony to sleep properly, and he just sighed and looked away – though he made sure to ask JARVIS if he could do his best to get Tony to sleep tonight instead of just working through the night.

 

 

4.

The Avengers all sat in the common room, waiting to start a movie. As of now they were debating on which movie they should watch; Clint wanted to keep working on getting Steve and Thor acquainted with modern movies (or in Thor’s case, _movies_ in general), while Natasha wanted to watch some horror movie.

(They were all betting on Natasha’ choice winning in the end.)

Tony hadn’t come up yet, but JARVIS had assured them all that he was on his way. They were all getting ready to send Bruce down to get him.

It was proven that they didn’t have to though, when he walked through the door a few minutes later (right after Natasha’s choice had won; in hindsight, maybe he just hadn’t wanted to get inbetween Natasha and Clint yelling at each other, especially when they started pulling out the tricks. Half the people in the room hadn’t wanted to be there when they first started yelling. No one had wanted to be there when they started throwing punches. There was also the fact that Clint probably would have tried to get him on his side.) with his hands in his pockets and sunglasses on, and he sat down right between Clint and Natasha.

After a moment of consideration as they started to put the movie in, Tony got up and walked into the kitchen, coming back with a cup of coffee. The rest of the Avengers rolled their eyes as they saw him with it, and Tony held his hands up innocently.

“Hey, I haven’t slept in days. If I’m going to make it through this movie, just _lying_ here next to the two human-heater super-spies, then I’m going to _need_ this coffee.”

Clint laughed at being called a “human-heater super-spy” and Natasha just shrugged.

“Was that supposed to be one of your nicknames? It’s kinda terrible,” Bruce said quietly, and Tony rolled his eyes.

“I haven’t drunk my coffee yet. Get off my back,” Tony defended himself.

“Anyway, let’s start this movie,” he said and the movie started playing.

Almost every twenty minutes throughout the movie, Tony had to get up and get himself a new cup of coffee. Each time Natasha and Clint rolled their eyes and moved so that he could stand up, but said nothing about it.

(Steve, however, did end up saying something when the lights turned on again and there were eight empty cups strewn over the floor. At this point, however, Clint had cuddled up to Tony and protested at the mere idea of him having to get up and move. Tony had given Steve a fake apologetic look, and curled up closer.

Steve had ended up carrying away the empty cups himself, all while cursing Tony under his breath.

And, then… when Clint not letting Tony leave turned against him, Thor ended up getting him his coffee. Both Clint and Tony were far too happy with this arrangement.

None of them said anything when ten minutes later, Natasha joined the cuddle pile as well, exceot to groan at the idea of having to get _more_ coffee for them.)

 

 

5.

Somehow, at some point, Steve had become the person Tony came to when he went out to go to a new coffee place, one that he had never tried before.

Tony always said that it was because this gave him a chance to both have a second opinion about the coffee (though it was rarely listened to; if Tony liked the coffee, he would come again. If he didn’t, even if Steve did, he would never come near the place again) and introduce Steve to 21st century coffee, though to this one Steve just rolled his eyes. Coffee didn’t taste _that_ different.

(Ok, maybe that was a lie.)

Today it seemed that Tony had found another new place to check out, so he had come down to Steve’s room and almost dragged him out, talking excitedly about the place that Pepper had apparently told him about.

He rolled his eyes as they walked along, but smiled fondly at the actions of the man in front of him. Eventually they stopped in front of a coffee shop, which _looked_ nice enough – it had a very rustic style, and Steve enjoyed just looking at it, probably the artist in him – but he’d been on enough of these coffee tests with Tony to know that the look of the place never affected his like or dislike of the coffee.

Steve smiled, and took out his sketchbook and pencils. He looked around the coffee shop and started to sketch out the shop.

Tony’s eyes scanned the menu. “Do you wanna choose what you want to get, or should I choose for you, with my _obviously_ superior taste,” he said and Steve rolled his eyes.

“Just get me whatever.” He cursed himself for using those words a second later, knowing that chances are Tony would end up getting him the most ridiculous thing that was available.

By the time the drinks had come, he’d started to add the colour into his drawing. He used softer colours, which he felt really added to the feel of the place.

Tony called his attention to the coffees, and Steve eyed him cautiously before picking it up.

“You didn’t get me something… completely ridiculous, did you? This won’t be something that I completely regret eating later, will it?”

Tony held his hand up to his chest in a mock look of hurt, but chuckled. “No, I think you’ll actually like this one. I mean, I they made it properly. I haven’t tried mine yet to decide.”

Steve raised the cup to his lips and took a careful sip. His eyed widened though when he tasted it, and it seemed that Tony noticed.

“That good, huh?” Tony asked and drank a bit of his. “Oh yeah, this is good. Remind me to send Pepper flowers when we get back. This is absolute _gold_.”

Steve smiled and Tony laughed. “This is actually so good. I’m gonna get this all the time.”

(Steve just hoped that it wouldn’t be in the path of any Avengers business anytime soon, because Tony would _definitely_ save this place.

 

 

+1

There was someone in the Tower.

After a quick conversation, the Avenges came to the conclusion that none of them knew him (unless Tony did; he’d stopped for a cup of coffee on the way back.)

He wasn’t _doing_ anything that looked harmful, but they all got out their weapons anyway.

They all then burst through the door, weapons at the ready (Bruce was at the back, having no actual weapons). The man just gave them a _Look_ and rolled his eyes.

“You must be the Avengers,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The man had dark skin and hair, cut short. He was wearing what looked to be a military uniform.

He held out a hand – to which one of them, no one knew, and was about to introduce himself before the door opened and Tony walked in.

He took one look at the man in front of them and smiled wider than any of them had seen before.

“Honey bear!” he almost yelled, and pulled the other man into a hug. “I thought you were coming back tomorrow. Also – two months. I have not seen you in _two months_. What kind of mission needs that long?”

“Well, first, I did tell you, and Pepper told me she’d been reminding you daily for a week, and second, you _know_ I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Tony frowned for a second. “JARVIS, what day is it?”

“It is Thursday.”

“Oh. Well then, yeah, it was today.”

The man looked at Tony with an unreadable expression on his face. “When was the last time you slept?” Tony just shrugged.

“Colonel Rhodes, the last time Sir slept was over 64 hours ago.” Clint let out a whistle.

“Ok, no. Give me that coffee, you’re getting some sleep.”

“But… honey bear…” he protested weakly, but Colonel Rhodes shook his head.

“Nope. Get your ass in that bed and sleep.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll sit right here. Maybe watch a movie, talk to JARVIS, play some of your video games. Now go to sleep.”

Tony rolled his eyes, put down his coffee and started to walk to his room. The Avengers all looked at Colonel Rhodes in something akin to awe.

“How?” Steve whispered under his breath.

Colonel Rhodes just laughed. “I’ve been taking care of him since our MIT days. I think it’s just something you learn over time, because Pepper and Happy can do it as well, actually. Yeah. Sometimes when he gets like this all he needs is a little sleep.” He looked at them and held out his hand again. “James Rhodes.”

“That can’t just be something you learn over time. You have _got_ to teach us how to do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> so this is my first marvel fanfic don't hate me pls
> 
> also check out my [tumblr](http://wwwlw.tumblr.com/)? while we're at it pls send me prompts i'm v v bored


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